John Koethe Poems

I

In these I find my calling:
In the shower, in the mirror, in unconscious
Hours spent staring at a screen
...

I have a perfect life. It isn't much,
But it's enough for me. It keeps me alive
And happy in a vague way: no disappointments
On the near horizon, no pangs of doubt;
...

I think I like this room.
The curtains and the furniture aren't the same
Of course, but the light comes in the window as it used to
Late in the morning, after the others had gone to work.
...

I used to like being young, and I still do,
Because I think I still am. There are physical
Objections to that thought, and yet what
Fascinates me now is how obsessed I was at thirty-five
...

It starts in sadness and bewilderment,
The self-reflexive iconography
Of late adolescence, and a moment
...

Sometimes I dream what's called the male dream:
I'm going somewhere not too far away, I'm almost there,
When there's a slight delay—a minor detour of no consequence,
But then another, and another, as I get farther and farther
...

It fills up the space where poems used to be,
Until there's no space left. It's incessant
Phone calls, figuring out money and flights to
Somewhere, nowhere, not knowing what comes next:
...

Sometimes I stand in the middle of the floor,
Not going left, not going right.

—Stephen Sondheim
...

. . . humming in the summer haze.

Diane christened it the Bean House,
Since everything in it came straight from an
L.L. Bean Home catalog. It looks out upon two
...

Wallace Stevens is beyond fathoming, he is so strange; it
is as if he had a morbid secret he would rather perish than
disclose . . .
—Marrianne Moore to William Carlos Williams
...